Rock Climber Severely Injured at Minnesota Park

TAYLORS FALLS, Minn. (AP) — Authorities say a rock climber was critically injured when he fell in a Minnesota state park along the St. Croix River.

Twenty-three-year-old Nicholas Walberg remained in critical condition Wednesday at Regions Hospital in St. Paul.

Witnesses told authorities that Walberg slipped Monday while trying to climb the rocky gorge in Interstate State Park on the Minnesota side of the St. Croix.

The Chisago County Emergency Communications Center began receiving 911 calls to the park around 4:15 p.m.

Deputy Derek Anklan tells the St. Paul Pioneer Press that girls from a local camp canoeing the river told their counselor they saw the man fall. The counselor hiked down and saw the man lying face-down in the crevice.

Walberg was transported by rescue boat to an ambulance and flown to Regions.